Lilim
by Laryna6
Summary: Lilim are a type of incubus that visit men in dreams and take advantage of them. Kaworu was oblivious to the effect he had on Shinji. Shinji wished Kaworu was a little less pure. Shinji/Kaworu, Shinji/Rei/Kaworu
1. Chapter 1

_Every so often, I want to do a nice, normal romantic slashfic like writers that aren't totally insane. And then I fail and it ends up speccy crack with character analysis that points out people's issues and how a relationship might be messed up because of all this and I don't even know._

_A plot point in the Director's Cut version of the last episodes is an interesting bit of Fridge Brilliance. _

_In European/Christian myth, a Lilim is basically a subtype of incubus. They come to men in the night and have sex with them even if they don't want it, weakening them and tarnishing their souls – this was an explanation for wet dreams. They as well as other monsters were born because Lilith chose to sleep with animals/demons instead of Adam, and thus gave birth to monsters. _

_If you pay attention to the video of what happened in Antarctica right before Second Impact in the Director's Cut, not only was Second Impact set off to weaken Adam so that he wouldn't wake up and be beyond SEELE's control, they specifically set it off by inserting human DNA into Adam in order to trigger the formation of life, and it's implied that the seventeenth angel was the result. _

_In other words, the Lilim raped Adam while he slept, reducing the giant of light to an embryo and also producing an embryo: Kaworu Nagisa's birthday is the day of Second Impact because that's the day he was born, or rather conceived. The purest and nicest character in the series is not only a child of rape, but it was his birth/conception that triggered Second Impact. This being Eva, he probably does have a massive guilt complex about it, and it explains the comment about being born to meet Shinji and make him happy: he'd like there to be a meaning to his birth other than just setting off a global cataclysm that killed billions._

_So not only do we see that Eva's Lilim act like the mythological Lilim, but there's an explanation for why Tabris is the only angel who's really able to interact with and understand humanity at all, instead of being an eldritch abomination that can't be communicated or reasoned with: he's not just a child of Adam but a child of humanity, in the same way Rei is. _

* * *

He liked girls, Shinji knew he did, but when Kaworu stood up in the bath he couldn't look away from… there, or even pay much attention to what Kaworu was saying. He was very lucky that Kaworu was kinder than Asuka, because if he'd looked at Asuka's breasts like that, blushing and unable to look away, she would have beaten the hell out of him.

He didn't think Kaworu had even noticed, which made him simultaneously relieved and disappointed.

Seeing… that part of Kaworu was part of why he was here now, in Kaworu's bedroom. Shinji needed to keep his back to Kaworu as they dried off and put their clothes on. Covering up that milky white skin, like that of women in books, and Shinji would like to think that he was attracted to Kaworu because he was like a girl, but he knew that wasn't true. It was just… Kaworu was so kind, and how pathetic did that make him?

They were both the age where, well, physical reactions happened, but Kaworu hadn't been erect at all, unlike Shinji, and Shinji had blushed so furiously because he wanted to lean forward, reach forward and change that. Wanted to make Kaworu want Shinji.

Kaworu was almost certainly straight, so much so that the idea of Shinji finding his body attractive, of traditional communal bathing being an issue hadn't even occurred to him. He wasn't attracted to Shinji, so it was perfectly safe to spend the night in his bedroom.

Safe for Shinji, anyway.

His kindness, his openness: they were everything Rei and Asuka weren't, everything he could have wished from the older Misato. _I'll take care of you_, everything about him said. He'd touched Shinji's hand, just that, and Shinji had barely heard a word he said all evening, unable to understand any of it, unable to think about anything but Kaworu's smile and that soft skin. Hands that would never hurt him, lips that would never say anything cruel. If he, if he could make Kaworu want him, maybe this wouldn't vanish in the morning, like a dream? He could sleep up there in that bed with him, feel that skin all he wanted.

He couldn't stop himself from reaching down into his boxers to touch himself, just thinking of it.

A rose without thorns. Something beautiful that wouldn't hurt him when he touched it. He would hurt Kaworu, Shinji knew. He hurt everyone. He shouldn't be doing this here, looking at that peaceful face, those lips: what if Kaworu woke up? What if he recoiled from Shinji in disgust, once he saw what Shinji was really like? Kaworu was so perfect, so kind: if even _he _rejected Shinji?

He, he'd offered to share the bed with Shinji. Or let him have it, but…

He was like Rei, Rei who had been so ignorant of her emotions, of so many normal things. Maybe he wouldn't really understand what Shinji was doing? That it was shameful? Maybe he'd just enjoy it, maybe he'd just be glad that Shinji was more willing to touch now. He'd reciprocate, he wasn't selfish enough to just want to get off. He'd want to make Shinji feel good, wrap those lips around him, let Shinji tell him what he wanted, smile when Shinji moaned his name and kiss him afterwards, kiss him and hold him and accept him.

This was wrong, wrong, but even though he trembled Shinji couldn't stop himself from getting up, from looming over that figure and gulping when the movement made Kaworu open gently curious red eyes. "Ka, Kaworu, um… Would you mind sharing the bed?"

"Of course not, Shinji." He'd offered earlier. He hadn't changed his mind, why would he?

"Th-Thank you," Shinji said, blushing, and blushing more when Kaworu lifted up the blanket in invitation for Shinji to join him under it.

"Is this alright?" Kaworu asked when Shinji was settled, wrapping his arms around him.

"I, um, Kaworu… Is it alright if I touch you?" Shinji asked, because he didn't think he could keep his hips from pressing against Kaworu's for much longer.

"Of course, Shinji," Kaworu said, and Shinji could feel his smile, could feel how happy he was that Shinji wanted to do this, was willing to reach out to him without fear of being hurt. Or was willing to overcome that fear.

Kaworu thought it was just… a nice thing, something people did for those they liked and Kaworu had decided he liked Shinji so easily it had to be because he just liked people, Shinji knew, and he also knew that wasn't the truth. Shinji just wanted. This was what he had wanted for so long, and now, now he wanted to have as much as he could take.

Shinji didn't know what to do at this point, how to ease Kaworu into it, make him go along with it and gradually permit Shinji more and more things, but those hands stroking down his back, just to touch, just to make him feel good, made him press forward against Kaworu's body.

After that, he couldn't have stopped himself if he'd tried. From rubbing against that welcoming body, from reaching into Kaworu's underwear to touch him, _make _him hard, make him want what Shinji was going to do to him. Make him want Shinji. Couldn't keep himself from rolling over to pin Kaworu beneath him, from wrapping his legs around that body to keep him from escaping as Shinji thrusted, no, squirmed against him, gasping for breath until instinct drove him to kiss and suckle at those lips, that neck, to scratch at that back, to try to make Kaworu helpless so he couldn't leave Shinji, make him too desperate to want to.

Make him come from Shinji's touch, and looking down at those kiss-bitten lips, at that marked neck and feeling their mingled come soaking into Kaworu's sheets, he could imagine that Kaworu was just as soiled and impure as he was. That Shinji actually deserved Kaworu.

Kaworu was no less beautiful, but it seemed as though he was more… touchable now? That he was impure, that he was weak enough to let Shinji do this to him. Less remote, less like Rei. More human, more like Shinji.

Attainable. That was it. He couldn't be perfect, because Shinji couldn't deserve anyone as perfect as Kaworu seemed. So if he could make him imperfect, touchable, by touching him?

Shinji fell asleep on top of him, knowing that they'd be stuck together in the morning and it would be more than a little gross but liking the idea because of that. Mine, he thought, pressing at Kaworu, trying to dig past those clothes and into Kaworu's skin. Mine. Want me. No one else but me.

When he woke up, it was just like he might have imagined. Kaworu didn't hesitate to kiss him, didn't hesitate to smile and wrap his arms around Shinji. Was happy to have Shinji show him how to touch him, moon-pale hair and crimson eyes leaning over him and watching Shinji lovingly as he gasped with pleasure.

Shinji couldn't last very long at all.

* * *

Shinji was welcome there the next night, and the next, always welcome. There was no school to go to anymore, so except for tests there wasn't anywhere he had to be. Hours that otherwise would have been cold and empty could instead be spent _with_ someone.

It was still a shock to wake up with someone there, holding him or letting himself be held by Shinji, as though Shinji was good enough to be allowed to touch him, worth sheltering or strong enough to shelter anyone. A shock to be sitting there alone, listening to his Sdat player and hear Kaworu's voice, see a hand offered for him to take.

Shinji wanted to stay in that little room. To close out the world, to just lie there and not have to think, just feel and make Kaworu feel. Replace the shell that kept others away, the thorny shield of a hedgehog with walls that would enclose just the two of them, but Kaworu loved life so much there was always something he wanted to do together, and Shinji always ended up smiling, at first without noticing it and then with wonder at his own happiness.

Walking along the shore, seeing all the damage he'd done or failed to prevent: it depressed him before, but now Kaworu held his hand and looked at him with eyes the color of that water. It made it beautiful, somehow. Made it the place where he'd met Kaworu. Where he'd hummed that song of joy and spoken words that made no sense to Shinji, because he didn't understand joy or caring, much less that they could possibly apply to him.

Even when they did lie awake on that bed, in that room that felt only big enough for the two of them, a place no one else could invade, Shinji wasn't thinking thoughts of emptiness, of how there was nothing he could think of to do, nothing he could do that would make any difference. Instead, the music from his player was shared for the first time. The little room with its hard, bare walls was almost as good as a practice room. He heard Kaworu sing in there, instead of just humming, and eventually let Kaworu coax him into singing other parts sometimes. Shinji knew he wasn't very good, but if it was to hear Kaworu sing… And playing his cello, he'd do that all day if it meant Kaworu played along with him, or sang while Shinji provided accompaniment that really wasn't what Kaworu deserved, but if it helped him sing…

Kaworu told him that he played beautifully, because his heart was in every note and Kaworu loved his heart, loved _him_. It wasn't just empty flattery, either. Not just something Kaworu was saying because Shinji had somehow gotten unbelievably lucky and Kaworu had fallen for him hard enough to overlook all of Shinji's faults. It was Kaworu's honest opinion, and Shinji could actually believe that because Kaworu's opinion of Shinji's singing was nowhere near as glowing. Oh, Kaworu said that it was only natural: Shinji hadn't grown up training his voice the way Kaworu had, because of the teachers _he _was raised by. He didn't think that Shinji's singing was as terrible as Shinji thought, but he did give him tips, and showed him a few practice exercises, and coaxed him to get better, smiling all the while because he believed that Shinji was capable of getting better, that Kaworu wasn't wasting his time. So because of that, Shinji could believe that when Kaworu didn't have anything to say about his playing, it really was because Kaworu didn't see anything wrong with it.

Every kind word of encouragement, every note Kaworu sang: maybe Kaworu was right about Shinji's heart being in his playing, because Shinji could hear Kaworu's in his voice, see it in his eyes. While Shinji hid himself away from the world, Kaworu was always himself. He didn't have two faces like Misato, Asuka… Like everyone, except Shinji who really didn't bother to try to act brave or anything. He didn't believe there was anything he could do to make people like him more, so he didn't try to put up a façade. They'd just see through it eventually.

Kaworu didn't wear a mask because there wasn't anything to hide: he really just was that kind. He really was that brave, too, because when there were things he didn't know how to do he didn't hesitate to say it. He didn't try to hide how much he liked Shinji, even though it made him vulnerable.

Shinji tried to feel bad about taking advantage of that vulnerability. For taking that outstretched hand, for letting Kaworu spend every possible second with him when Kaworu should have been making other friends, better friends, finding better ways to spend his time than with Shinji.

It was clear even to Shinji that Kaworu believed there weren't any better ways to spend his time, but the more time he spent with Kaworu the clearer it became that he really was like Rei. He'd been raised isolated, for a purpose, and just like Rei hadn't known how to feel her emotions Kaworu didn't know how to judge people. Otherwise he would have found Shinji wanting, right? Everyone else had.

So just like Shinji had hoped Rei would learn more, so she might learn to like Shinji, he hoped Kaworu didn't. He hoped that Kaworu stayed strange, stayed different, stayed innocent, because if he learned more then he'd stop smiling at Shinji, in that way that made Shinji blush.

The smile that said Kaworu was happy to see him. The smile that said welcome home when Shinji took his hand. Even when Misato ordered him to go back to her apartment, he could stand up to her and say he'd only come if Kaworu came with him. He could go back to that room where he'd spent so many lonely nights and think of it as his room, as home, because Kaworu came with him.

It was like a dream, but Shinji knew that Kaworu had to be the one dreaming, because Shinji didn't think he could have imagined that someone would make him this happy before. He didn't want Kaworu to wake up.

Even though he knew that he shouldn't spend every possible second with Kaworu, because surely Kaworu would get sick of him, Shinji did. When Kaworu was with Shinji, then he wasn't with anyone else, because no one else wanted to spend time with Shinji. Kaworu was so friendly, and if he liked Shinji this much then surely he'd like the other people here even more and then surely he wouldn't want to spend time with Shinji, either.

Wouldn't wash his back or hair in the baths for him, wouldn't rub his neck just because Shinji seemed tense and Kaworu worried about him. Wouldn't look at him with those patient red eyes and not demand answers but hope that Shinji would explain. Hope that there was something Kaworu could do, even if it was only listen.

No, Kaworu was too wonderful to be Shinji's dream.

For Kaworu to keep dreaming, keep living this fantasy that Shinji was someone worth loving: that was Shinji's wish, more than anything else. It was what he felt when he played the cello and hoped Kaworu would like it, it was what he felt when he tried to sing and hoped Kaworu would appreciate that he was trying. It was even a third of what he felt when he touched Kaworu.

_Mine._

_Be mine. _

_Don't look at anyone else, not even yourself. Just look at me, just touch me, focus on me. _

As hard as Kaworu tried to give Shinji warmth with every touch, to let him feel Kaworu's love in the core of him, Shinji tried to make Kaworu think of only Shinji. To throw his head back with his eyes closed, as unable to look at the outside world as Shinji was unwilling. To fill, to stain that pure heart with Shinji, Shinji, only Shinji. To fill Kaworu's heart and mind and very soul so there was no room for anyone else.

It was so very selfish of him, wanting to turn the first person to ever care about him, to really give him a chance into his doll, his pet, as though Kaworu had nothing better to do than to keep him company. He didn't want to treat Kaworu like Gendo did Rei, but he just…

He couldn't give up Kaworu, not when his eyes, his words, his lips, his body, his song: everything made Shinji feel so good, he loved him so much he wanted to devour everything that was Kaworu.

"Don't feel guilty," Kaworu told him one evening. "I'm glad that you want me to stay with you. It's why I've been able to stay this long," he said, and there was a softness to his smile Shinji hadn't seen there before. No, it wasn't softness but weakness. Something had dimmed Kaworu's joy, those eyes were looking past Shinji, and Shinji wouldn't allow that.

He would have pressed Kaworu for answers, no, demanded them, even if it wasn't something that made Kaworu sad. Because it made Shinji jealous. Thinking that he could help Kaworu by relieving some of his pain, the way he'd helped Shinji's made him a little happy, but he knew he didn't deserve to be proud of himself, not when his real reason was such a selfish one. He didn't want Kaworu to look away from him, couldn't stand the thought of him going away.

If his selfishness could save Kaworu, though? It was still hard for Shinji to believe anything good about himself, even the him reflected in Kaworu's eyes, but he knew he was a selfish, needy person. He could be as selfish and needy as _anything_, if it would let Kaworu hold on to Kaworu's dream. The dream that made Kaworu so happy with Shinji, the dream that kept Kaworu alive.

The dream that Kaworu was human enough to have a life.

* * *

"Hmm?" Ritsuko frowned, looking over the test results and photographs Misato brought her. The Fifth Child's sync ratio wasn't changing levels as fast as it had the first day. It was still clear that he could control it, but the change was no longer instant. If she didn't know that physical condition had nothing to do with an Eva's response, she might have attributed it to the obvious difference between the Fifth Child on his first day and after the first night.

It made her clench her fists in jealousy. Gendo Ikari would never leave marks on her like that. The bastard.

Wait. "How would you describe his personality? How he treats others?"

"He's very open, or he seems that way. Friendly. Too friendly," Misato told her, leaning against the wall of Ritsuko's cell. "Recently, though, he's been more and more focused on Shinji." Eyes drawn to him in a crowded room, smiling at others more briefly so he could return his gaze to Shinji.

"Clever," Ritsuko said slowly, thinking. "In order to pilot an Eva, one needs to open oneself to the Eva. That's one of the reasons it has to be children." Reality quickly made grown-ups too bitter to let anyone in like that, even if it weren't for the effects of Second Impact on those born afterwards. "He may be just as open as he seemed. If SEELE somehow managed to raise someone like that, without letting them learn to distrust others? I didn't think it was humanly possible, but someone who opened their mind to the Eva with no hesitation could have these results. Someone who loved the entire world and either had no idea that they might be hurt because of it or just didn't care. But human love, the only kind we're capable of, is selfish. If we love someone most, then we love other people less than them. If he really did fall for Shinji," she said, and wondered if Misato would realize why she was grimacing, notice the accidental pun, "he would begin to love Shinji more than other people." The way there was no room in Gendo's heart for anyone but Yui. "The more fixated on Shinji he becomes, the less he will open to other people, or to the Evas." She looked up at Misato. "How are Shinji's results?"

"Better than before. He's grown more confident, more willing to open up to others because of this." Because he'd found one person who hadn't hurt him… so far.

Ritsuko smiled bitterly. "So Kaworu loves Shinji more than Shinji loves Kaworu." And in the game of love, the person who loved the other more lost. "Like father, like son." She'd thought Shinji wasn't a user like Gendo. Ha. He was a man, wasn't he? She laughed at herself, but, "I assume the seventeenth angel hasn't appeared yet?" She'd been here long enough for her brown roots to grow out a full inch. She was never dyeing her hair again. Not for Gendo's sake or anyone's.

"The tension's so thick at headquarters you could cut it with a knife. The angel could just be waiting: at this rate, the army will attack us and it can finish off the victor. Someone's sending assassins after Shinji, too." None of them had gotten close enough to strike, not yet, but, "It almost seems more like they're sending a message than anything. None of them have been very skilled, none of them know anything. Expendable types. And I've seen Kaworu leave in the early mornings." Returning in time to slip back into Shinji's bed. "It took awhile to verify that he was using a holographic communication system." She was certain he'd seen her, even though it wasn't possible to see someone watching through binoculars from so far away. "It looks like whoever he's reporting to, probably the ones that sent him," SEELE, "aren't very happy with him. And he isn't all that bothered by it." Serene, and not just that calm, angelic serenity. Misato recognized young love. She was also intimately familiar with 'Doesn't matter, had sex.' "I gather he's pretty important to their plans, if they've put up with it this long. Or he may just have a good excuse."

If only Kaji had been able to obtain a copy of those prophecies! Was seducing the Third Child worth putting off the search for Adam in SEELE's eyes? Or did this one know that it was Lilith sealed under NERV, and hadn't yet found where in the complex Adam was being kept?

"Or he's a decoy," Misato finally admitted. It was _possible _that he wasn't the seventeenth angel.

Ritsuko shook her head. "Too much like Rei."

"Rei?" Misato had already guessed that Kaworu might be another clone, SEELE's attempt at a dummy plug or some other system possessed by an angel like that other one possessed that Eva, but what was this now? More secrets?

"She only had a soul because she's the vessel of Lilith's."

"Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"Being locked up has given me a lot of time to think." Too much.

Misato shook her head: she wasn't going to give up on figuring this out, but all these conspiracies and insane experiments were just ridiculous. "You'll be let out for good behavior soon. The real reason is that you're the best with the Evas, and everyone's waiting for the first shoe to fall." It was quiet, and they heard the rumbles in the distance, saw the approaching tanks. A storm was coming: no, it was already here. So why hadn't it struck?

* * *

_Since in the apocrypha Lilith slept with demons/animals and became the mother of monsters, I was considering even more of an EVA AU where Shinji was a Lilim, Misato was a maenad (alcohol, sex and violence), they should have buried Kaji at a crossroads to make sure of him (which was how he was able to survive his relationship with Misato, not to mention Ritsuko…) and basically everyone in the world was some variety of mythological monster instead of a human. _


	2. Chapter 2

After seeing the postage stamp-sized quarters assigned to Kaworu (so they hadn't expected him to need them very long at all…), Misato had given in to Shinji's blue eyes and let Kaworu stay with them instead of just hauling Shinji out of there. Not in Asuka's empty room, but in Shinji's.

As much as she hated angels, better to keep your enemies close. Shinji was certainly keeping him very close. Misato knew all the signs of sex, and Shinji was washing his sheets so often nothing stayed in the dirty laundry for more than a day. She would have known exactly what was going on even if she didn't have hidden security cameras in her place, ones she'd taken control of as soon as she moved in.

Now that Ritsuko pointed it out, Misato could see it: Kaworu doted on Shinji. Shinji was overjoyed, but also gloating. Possessive. If Kaworu's eyes didn't turn back to Shinji, Shinji would make sure they did, she saw at dinner.

Not very healthy at all, and she wasn't sure to what degree she should care. What kind of fury would an angel scorned have? But if Shinji was a little over-controlling, that was all to the good, wasn't it? In this case?

The next night, though, Kaworu kept glancing towards the Geofront, worry in his eyes, and Misato went back to her room quickly after dinner, hoping that as soon as they were alone… bingo.

"It's worse tonight, isn't it?" Shinji asked, pulling the boy-that-wasn't down onto the couch to sit on him.

Kaworu nodded. "It's been getting worse."

"Don't listen to it," Shinji demanded, holding Kaworu's head in his hands so he couldn't look away from Shinji. "Just listen to me. You're mine, not his. Or hers. Or SEELE's."

"I'm trying." Kaworu smiled up at him, red eyes soft and grateful. "I didn't think I would have more than one or two nights to spend with you." He'd lived that first week like each day was his last, each day a precious blessing, a little more time to spend on this world, with Shinji. After he confessed to Shinji the call was dampened enough that he could almost begin to listen to Shinji when his love promised to protect him, promised that he'd _make _this last forever, let those words erode the decision to accept death he'd made so long ago, and yet… Kaworu knew that he should be saddened by the thought of dying, but when his death meant Shinji would live? When he'd had so much time to spend with Shinji, so much proof that his sacrifice would be worth it?

"I hate being grateful to my father," Shinji admitted, "but it's almost worth everything he put me through, so I can do this. You're just so strong though," Shinji said, biting his lip. "And I don't need to break into your heart."

"It's not your fault, Shinji. You've… thank you. You've given me so much." Kaworu embraced him. "I'm supposed to report tomorrow morning again, and if I keep staring towards the geofront? SEELE already suspects that I've already been called. The others couldn't fight it, but the Lilim might be able to, and since they…"

"It's not your fault," Shinji told him. "It's not your fault. None of us asked to be born. And you, if you weren't born, I couldn't have met you," he said, stroking silver hair.

"I wish I was born to meet you," the angel said. "Just to be yours."

"I'll weaken you as much as I can tonight," Shinji promised, starting to mouth Kaworu's neck.

"Ah, Shinji…" Kaworu gasped, losing his train of thought as Shinji sunk his teeth in. "Misato…"

"Hhn?" Shinji wondered, not really paying attention. What about Misato?

Kaworu's eyes looked directly at the camera, met hers through the lens the way she'd seen him see her through her binoculars. "We need to tell her."

"Don't even think about it!" Shinji ordered angrily. "She hates the angels because of Second Impact, what if she blames you for…" He quieted when Kaworu put a finger to his lips, looking a little shocked.

"I should tell her that myself," Kaworu said, and sighed. "I shouldn't have let her hear so much, but she already knows."

Hearing them? "Why didn't you warn me she was watching us?" Shinji was too shocked to get angry, yet.

"At first because I was distracted by the call, and then because… Because I don't know how much time I have left, and since the only survivor was here... Forgive me, Shinji." Kaworu looked at him pleadingly.

"If she tells them who you are, or takes you away from me…" Shinji wouldn't forgive either of them, and made it clear by kissing Kaworu viciously, making the angel groan.

It was when Shinji started to glow that Misato grabbed her gun and burst in. "What have you done to him?" Infected him, the way other angels had infiltrated Evas and systems?

Kaworu looked up her with unfocused eyes, trying to catch his breath, as Shinji glared at her protectively and stopped glowing. "It's an anti-AT field. My father made sure I would be so miserable so that I could generate one. It means I could trigger Third Impact, and it also means that I can damage AT fields. I've been hurting Kaworu because he asked me to, so he can't hear Adam and Lilith." But she should know better than to even try to threaten an angel, much less Shinji's Kaworu with that gun.

"A human could trigger Third Impact?" Even Kaji hadn't suspected that.

"Humans are the Eighteenth Angel," Shinji said bluntly, narrowed eyes telling her she had no right to hate Kaworu because he was an angel. "The Lilim. If Kaworu dies, _all of us_ might start getting called to merge with Adam or Lilith, because we're next in line. We probably will be called, because there already have been people trying to make sure we merge with them, all this time, so the drive is there."

Misato wished she could say he had to be lying, but this? This was the missing piece. Humans and angels had almost identical DNA except for the type of matter. Evas were derived from angels, but they could contain human souls. They were the same. She was the same as the things that had killed her father.

Her gun shook and bile rose in her throat as she lowered it to point at the ground. "The Secret Dead Sea Scrolls… Prophecies are ridiculous, but genetic memory…" Humanity's fate. An instinctive drive. Unlike many mammals, humans didn't only crave sex when they were fertile or in the presence of someone fertile. Didn't need heat to drive them to mate. Those conspiracies already wanted Third Impact: what would happen when humanity was actually driven to obtain it? Driven the way the angels had been?

Bite the bullet, she told herself. "It's related to our… why we have sex? Is that why the birthrate has been so low for so long now?" Kaji suspected it.

Kaworu and Shinji looked at each other. "I don't know for certain," the angel told her, "but Lilith cannot supply humanity with many more new souls – what you call the AT field is the light of the soul – and some humans desire Third Impact in order to create a union between the black seed and the white, which they believe will make humans into gods. I, I am the first product of such a union."

"The white and black seeds?"

"Adam and Lilith," Kaworu explained. "I was created when…"

"Kaworu!" Shinji tried to stop him.

"Your birthday is the exact date of Second Impact." She kept her gun pointed at the floor, but it was an effort not to raise it.

The angel nodded, or was it more like bowing his head.

"But I've seen a video of what set it off, they injected Adam with_ human_ genetic material," Misato objected. "So why are you an ang-Because we are." The white seed and the black?

"A second seed should not have sprouted on this world," Kaworu told her. "The black and white seeds are incompatible: the black seeds create a duplicate of the Ancestors with all their flaws and their potential, and the white seeds create more powerful beings, some would say closer to the nature of the divine. There was division among the Ancestors as to which was superior, and the two breeds find each other distasteful. To be raped, implanted with seed of the black seed…" Kaworu winced. "Nothing could keep Adam from fighting back after a violation like that, not even a lance. So this world was nearly ruined, I was born and Adam was made weak enough that SEELE could make use of him instead of him ruining their plans."

"Ra-raped?" It was hard to force the word out. Rape an angel? Rape that white giant of light? But humans were humans, and if angels, even half-angels, were close enough for Kaworu to let Shinji mark him like that?

The angel bowed his head. "Yes. I have known how I was made and what I was made for since my form was still that of a child. My birth took your father away from you, and made so many more Lilim lose their loved ones. I decided long ago that I wouldn't destroy any more of this world."

"Since you _were _a child," Shinji corrected him, not letting Kaworu say what he'd planned to do. He couldn't stand to hear it again, to think of Kaworu offering himself to be killed, wanting to be destroyed like an enemy for the harm he'd already done? "And you didn't ask to be born!"

Her father died when Adam struck at its tormentors? Were the angels seeking vengeance too? Just like her?

Misato turned around and walked to the kitchen. She couldn't taste the beer until she was chugging her third. Until then it didn't taste like anything, not even American beer, which at least tasted like water.

When she turned back around Shinji had Kaworu pinned down again. From the way the angel's eyebrows were drawn together that glow _hurt_, but it was a pain he suffered gladly. A pain he was well on his way to associating with pleasure, judging from the way she couldn't see Shinji's hands, from the soothing murmuring sounds Shinji was making, trying to take Kaworu's mind off it.

Misato casually sat herself down in a chair to enjoy the show.

If she really had been expecting that failing to get a reaction out of her would make Shinji stop it or Kaworu stop Shinji, she would have been disappointed. The angel's eyes were closed, trying to block out all of the world except for Shinji, and Shinji had planned to spend the evening not just saving Kaworu's life for a little longer, but saving Kaworu's life by having sex, which was so much better than Eva piloting. Compared to that, explaining _anything _to Misato, or anyone for that matter, was a complete waste of time, and he was miffed at Kaworu for trying to get it done tonight, after Shinji had already gotten excited. Ignoring her was his passive-aggressive way of getting back at them both for this. It wasn't that Kaworu would care about being watched during sex, but he would care about being rude to Misato by ignoring her.

A handful of minutes more and Kaworu let out a soft cry, sounding utterly grateful and loving and needing and undone.

…_Misato _wanted a boyfriend who got off on making her orgasm, possessive power trip or no power trip. Or did Shinji like seeing the angel like this? Tired, pained, driven over the edge and still needing, wanting more? Helpless in his grasp? Weak, human? Misato knew how easily men got overstimulated, and exactly how much sex had they been having for shy little Shinji to get this confident with it?

She wondered how much beer it would take for her to try to put herself in Shinji's bed again.

* * *

This time, instead of unsuccessfully trying to hide her presence from Kaworu when he went to go stand on the beheaded angel statue several meters out in the red water to make his report to SEELE she was driving him in exchange for a report. In fact, he'd patched the holographic communicator through to her laptop.

"I said, and Shinji agrees, that I should declare my opposition to them today. If they attack now, I will still be of some use," he'd told her earlier, quiet and calm even though they were talking about SEELE sending the army to attack NERV, to stop Gendo and force Kaworu to merge with Lilith, giving them the exact form of Instrumentality and Complementation they desired. Infusing the bodies born from Lilith with the nobility and power of the soul of Adam.

"Instead of Shinji having to kill you to stop you from merging with Lilith."

Kaworu smiled at her. "Yes, but he thought of someone who might help."

"Someone?"

"It's not my secret to tell," he apologized.

Someone, someone… She was sure she should know who he meant, it should be obvious, but they had almost reached the shore so she was out of time to try to put her finger on it. For now. Also, she had a battle to plan.

"There isn't anyone watching who doesn't know what I am, or won't know soon, so... I'll be back in a moment, Major Katsuragi." After she stopped the car he darted out onto the water: here at the edge it was so shallow that Misato understood how she could have failed to realize that he was running on the surface of the water, not the sand and rubble right beneath it, from her vantage point up on the hill when she spied on him before.

What did he mean by 'who won't know soon?' Misato wondered that, getting out and leaning back against her car, but she supposed that even if they were about to go to war with SEELE, that wasn't any reason to be late.

She was closer, but watching him from the back instead of the side she could actually tell less about what was going on. For now she was watching him instead of the feed he was sending to her laptop – not via a technical means SEELE might notice, but by 'infecting' it. He was the last angel (but one), and they'd all learned from those who came before.

When the conversation was over, he jumped back to shore. "You should reassure the young man who was with you when you watched me before. I believe he's on the bridge staff?" Normally they would have introduced themselves to the Fifth Child, but since Misato had them investigating him they'd all been wary. "After you have put some distance between yourself and this place." The angel looked out across the sea. "It will start very soon."

And the rogue angel would be a target. "I'll get Shinji to his Eva," she promised him. "The safest place for Asuka is inside her Eva: she's already there, and we can hide it in this lake."

"That works perfectly," he told her with a smile, happy to be of help. Misato didn't know if she'd considered him smiling all the time to be more or less creepy before she figured out that he was making an effort to be happy, perhaps to enjoy life for the sake of those who couldn't, instead of resigning himself to quite reasonable misery the way Shinji had. It wasn't a lie, he wasn't smiling to cover up unhappiness, but it must take work to find things to be happy about in the face of death. It wasn't just SEELE that was convinced when he came here that Kaworu would go after Adam within one, two days at the most. "Once I begin, the forces they send here will be trying to destroy me: they won't start dredging the lake unless I've already been taken care of."

"You're staying here."

He nodded. "Yes. This is something I've chosen for myself. Shinji understands." The angel smiled, thinking of Shinji, and she knew he didn't expect to survive. "I don't want to leave this world worse off than it was when I came into it. I can't fix all of it, but…"

"What do you mean?" Misato asked him. "Are you talking about Second Impact?" He couldn't possibly change the planet's tilt or bring billions of people back to life… Could he?

He looked out over the sea. "Nagisa. SEELE approved it because with alternate kanji it can mean messenger, which is the meaning of the word angel. I chose it because it means 'seashore.' I can't affect all the land the tsunami reached, not without creating a tsunami myself," and that would kill people, "but LCL is what you call the primordial soup: it nourishes life when directed by an AT field, and we angels can shape it to our wills. I didn't think I would really be able to attempt this, but, with Shinji's help… It might exhaust me enough for the army to get through my AT field. I would rather die trying to help this world than trying to destroy it." He turned back to her, smiling, and she was suddenly struck by the fact that his eyes were the color of that barren water, and his hair was the color of bone, as though he was so ethereal because he was already dead. "And if I'm killed before I manage to transform all the seas, and the LCL kills everything all over again, well, at least I would have tried to atone for the sin of my creation."

"The… sea?"

"I want it to be blue again. Like Shinji's eyes. I want that to be my gift to him, I want him to come to this place, where we first met, and see the proof of my love."

"An angel… Undoing the destruction that was caused by humanity. You want them to murder you while you're helping us?" Maybe her feelings began to transform into anger then, at that too kind smile, wondering if this was to make himself look better or because he considered himself superior, but he shook his head.

"They will be granting my wish by protecting their future. Killing me while I am still myself, and if they can kill me, Shinji won't have to. Please, Misato. Please survive so you can tell these men that." That they hadn't done anything wrong by attacking him. "And please hurry. This place is too exposed, and it's on a direct path to NERV. They'll be here very soon after the order is given."

She nodded like the soldier she was. "I'll protect Shinji."

"Thank you," he told her with a smile that conveyed how happy he was to see her one last time, and went to crouch at the edge of the waters, running his fingers through the watery LCL (the seas turned to blood: a sign of the apocalypse), in a way that would have seemed idle if she didn't know what he was and what he intended.

The sudden roar of her engine or the screech of her tires on the pavement as she drifted through turns back to Tokyo-3 didn't make him jump: he just kept looking down on the blood on his hand, finally lifting his gaze to the horizon, the end of the lake and the ocean beyond it.

When he heard the rattle and rumble of tanks behind him, he nodded. Time to begin: NERV would be too busy to send Shinji here to attack him, not when he was needed closer to home.

Getting to his feet, he considered sitting on the statue again, the way he had when they first met, but then he paused. "Rei. I'm glad you came." That she'd made her own choice instead of serving Gendo.

"Will you really bring the whales back? I think… I am told that I am made of light and water, that this is the nature of all of me, but the waters are…" Perhaps if she saw herself reflected in the blue sea, the third thought, she might be able to see herself there. She thought she saw herself in Shinji's eyes, but there was too much of Shinji there for her to find herself.

"If I can manage it," he told her. "First, I need to restore the plankton, since they produce oxygen and are the base link of so many food chains. Then kelp. The more LCL I leave untransformed at the end of each step, the more likely that enough will be left over when I stop to undo all my work, if I lose control of myself without warning." He tilted his head to the side of a silent question.

"If you show me how you intend to do this, I will make sure that the seas do not die again," she promised him.

"Thank you," he said, reaching out his hands to her. "But please promise me one thing: that you won't shield me. If my AT field fails, that means my soul is faltering, guttering out. When that light dies, if I am still alive, Adam's soul will awaken inside me. Don't let him use my body to harm Shinji."

"I won't allow harm to come to Shinji. That was the most important thing to the second." Who was also her, so that was her wish as well even if she didn't quite understand it yet.

Kaworu's smile as he took her hands made her happy inside, because even though he was sad he was also grateful, and he trusted her to protect Shinji. "Thank you, Rei." He closed his eyes, and she felt him raise his AT field before she saw the glow, before he raised them up into the air and over the waters, wrapping the light of his soul around them both, to protect her even though she also desired Shinji.

_He seeks to ensure Shinji's happiness after he is gone_, Rei knew, and knew she had been that noble once, that she had died to save Shinji's life. She wanted to become that person again, she wanted to become Kaworu's equal, equally worthy of Shinji.

If she tamely went to obey Gendo, then she never would have been worthy, she knew as she felt his soul reach out to the LCL in the water, shaping it the way the other angels must have shaped themselves bodies. First making the LCL in this lake into something akin to a transmitter or signal booster, to allow him to reach LCL even on the other side of the planet. The water beneath them became blue and green, the surface blooming with many-colored lotuses, but even though they were more beautiful than the form any other angel had taken they were simply a part of Kaworu for now, not life that could survive on its own.

Later, later. If he held out that long. This lake would be beautiful. The sea would live again, and maybe humanity would begin to believe that they and their world could truly live again.

If he held out that long. If Shinji lived to see it.

* * *

_It's really sad when trying to induce codependence is _healthier_ than what was going on before._

_Defining an anti-AT field as an AT field that breaks down other AT fields, then defining the AT field as the soul/will/self, it makes sense that it was so important for the pilots to develop negative self-worth for them to be used for Third Impact. It's interesting to come up with a scenario where a weapon/effect that is something that destroys individuality/destroys souls and is thus about as evil as things get is actually helpful. It's a bit like doing surgery with a chainsaw in terms of overall danger, but when the alternative is death and/or Third Impact? As Misato reflects, the Evas are abominations but without them humanity is SOL, so oh well. A ninety percent chance of death is better than a hundred percent chance. _

_Note that even if Shinji has the power to cause Third Impact with his Eva and a resonating diagram and/or Rei, he's not trying to breach Kaworu's ego barrier. He doesn't want Kaworu to cease to exist or no longer have _any _will of his own, he's just trying to limit that will. Which IRL is extremely toxic in relationships and you should get out of there if they try to cut off outside contact/separate you from your friends, but desperate times…_


	3. Chapter 3

NERV was in chaos when Misato arrived, but it was the good kind of chaos. The Commander wasn't there and Fuyutsuki was mostly reasonable. With Gendo gone, she should stay in command. "Ignore the AT field!" she ordered. "It's a decoy to split the army and SEELE's concentration. I brought Shinji: get him out there! And I want Asuka launched as quick as you can manage it." Misato had ordered her put into her Eva the night before: if her mother really was in there, it might help her mind recover, and who knew if they could transfer a near-vegetable safely in the midst of an attack?

"Decoys?" Maya asked. "But they've been identified by the Magi as the Seventeenth and Second Angels!"

"The second?" Misato asked, leaning over her workstation. Wasn't the Second Lilith, the one buried in Terminal Dogma? Was this what Kaworu hesitated to tell her, because it wasn't his secret? That was Rei with him. "So that's why the two of them looking alike was so significant, Ritsuko…"

"What?" Ritsuko asked from a screen: she appeared to be deep in the Magi. She hadn't caught any of that but her name, too busy working.

"The Fifth Child just informed SEELE that he's defected. We're about to get mass-produced Evas with a functional dummy plug system based on his simulation data dumped on us," she told her old friend. "As soon as they can get them over here. They're being produced at different bases, and SEELE won't want them to show up one at a time but as an overwhelming force, so we should still have several hours. Did they launch a computer attack?"

"Already destroyed their Magi." Ritsuko rolled her eyes: really, what had Misato expected. "Maya, get the Major up to date."

"We're already closing up the route you came in through, Major," Shigeru let her know. "They're good. If it weren't for the advance warning," no matter the source, "we'd have been penetrated a lot deeper before the Bakelite system became effective."

On the one hand, that was good. On the other, if NERV became too hard a nut to crack, they might give up on making sure they'd confirmed the deaths of all the important people and destroyed all the Evas and put up with the uncertainty caused by the indiscriminate destruction of N2 mines. "We need Shinji out there," since an AT field could let him block the N2 mines. And incoming Evas.

Well.

Time to go to work.

* * *

Kaworu and Rei's foreheads were pressed together now, not because it made sharing thoughts any easier but because it seemed as appropriate as joining hands. Rei felt Tabris' relief that having Rei here greatly muted the call. Rei had Lilith's soul and the presence of a seed was making his instincts think he was where he was supposed to be, doing what he was supposed to be.

Except instead of turning all the living things on this world into LCL, he was turning almost all the LCL on this world into living things. It was a pity that seeing the seas turn blue might only frighten the Lilim further, since they would surely assume that only the power of an angel could do something like that, but they wouldn't have any reason to think that the angel was using their power to help instead of hurt. Still, all the shots fired at Kaworu and Rei, and just as easily brushed aside (Rei was making a neat pile of them, perhaps because of Yui's 'motherly' influence) were shots that weren't being fired at Shinji.

Trips to aquariums and the ability of angels to encroach upon, analyze and mimic living things let Kaworu know the structures of many living organisms: there wouldn't be a lot of genetic diversity, but since he wasn't recreating the diseases that preyed upon these species hopefully they would have the chance to evolve and mutate more diversity to protect themselves before land and river-borne diseases mutated to attack them. He was trying to create populations of as many species as he could so that if one died out, there would be another to hold the niche. A lack of genetic diversity within each species he created was better than a collapse which might destroy almost all his work just like leaving behind LCL would.

Despite his focus on that, Rei still felt his attention on Shinji, watching his Eva through her senses since Kaworu had almost entirely withdrawn from his human body, dwelling instead in the clumps of those false flowers he had spread throughout the oceans to give him data and let him coordinate this effort.

Even though Rei had come here to learn, it was Lilith's buried memories that let her correct Kaworu. He was so very, very young, Rei found herself thinking, even though the third had only been _herself _for less than three months. Lilith had experience creating a planetary ecosystem, seeding it with life born of her, and Kaworu only had instinct mingled with human instinct.

A pale hand let go of his, wrapped around his back and reached up to stroke silver hair.

An accursed Child of Adam, but also, also hers, perhaps. Rei thought that was what she felt. Just like Shinji was hers?

She'd been jealous of Tabris, so very jealous, but feeling him try so hard to repair the world Shinji lived on, Rei's world, Lilith's world… Perhaps it would not be so bad a thing if he lived.

Because Lilith's Room of Gauf was empty. She had no more souls to give: the only children born now were reincarnations, the few souls that chose to return to a dying world, and soon those would taper off. Tabris wasn't old enough to start producing souls yet, but while she wouldn't let a child of Adam have this world, not when that would destroy all her children, perhaps a hybrid wouldn't be so bad.

If he survived, and Shinji did. If humanity lasted long enough that the children he could give them would have parents.

The sea, blue and gray, calm and stormy, green with life or stained red by a sunset… The cradle of life. There was a word for the experience of repairing it together.

Ah, yes. Romantic.

And, of course, that was when the MP Evas arrived, spiraling down like vultures. Coming to attack Kaworu, not Shinji.

Because if Kaworu succeeded, if the Lilim saw that the damage wrought by Second Impact, by SEELE could be undone? They would have hope for this world's future again. She felt his alarm, felt him begin to bulk-convert the remaining LCL into simple algae to feed fish and hopefully encourage fast breeding, but no. "_Keep working_," she told him, letting go. "I'll handle this."

* * *

The sound of battle woke Asuka, she would say later, except it wasn't the sound per se. Even muffled by the water, by the mud her Eva lay on, the ground shook with explosions and familiar heavy footfalls.

An Eva battle.

She opened her eyes to find herself at the bottom of a pool. A pool filled with green wires for some reason. They swayed with the water. Except wasn't her Eva too big for a pool?

Standing up, she started to walk up the slope, cord stretched out behind her.

"Asuka?" She heard someone's voice dimly. "Asuka? Asuka!"

"Misato?" Her voice seemed muffled somehow, as though she was speaking underwater instead of under LCL.

"We're under attack by SEELE's forces and the army! The army has retreated from where you are, but Rei is there fighting the MP Evas to protect … Welcome back, Asuka," Misato said belatedly. "Are you up to fighting now?"

"Yes." Of course. Except… "Of course I am. I have Mama with me, after all," Asuka said, and giggled with sheer gleeful happiness, a child's joy. Her mind was still piecing itself back together, but she didn't need maturity or anything like that to fight.

…And of course the damn things that looked like albino lizardmen had gone straight for her power cord. The only thing that kept Asuka from cursing them in German was that Mama knew German, and she wasn't going to use words like that in front of Mama.

"Hold on, Asuka," Misato said after Asuka decided that no, she wasn't going to feed an S2 organ she'd ripped out of something like that to her mother and just crushed it underfoot. She didn't have any idea where these things had been, after all. "Rei will bring you a replacement battery."

Asuka frowned. "I've got three more minutes and there are only four of these weaklings left." Wait, why was she complaining? Of course she could win, especially with Wondergirl killstealing, but more power meant Mama could stay awake longer.

"Yes, but once they're gone the army will start attacking again." Or nuke Rei, Kaworu and the Eva from orbit, one or the other. Either way, Asuka would need an AT field and power for her Eva to survive. Misato tried to sound soothing, remembering Asuka's mental state and the way she kept giggling. "She'll handle installing the battery, it won't take much time at all."

Asuka still pouted, spinning the lance she'd stolen from one of these Conan baddie rip-offs idly, debating whether or not to throw it at one of the remaining four and go without something to block with until she managed to get her hands on another one… "Why is there a male version of Wondergirl in here?"

Damn. Misato had hoped she wouldn't notice, the way she still hadn't commented on the fact that Rei could suddenly fly. "That's the battery. We'll explain later."

"Like I care," Asuka said, shrugging dismissively as Mama fused the pretty boy to the wall of the entry plug and jettisoned the heavy, outdated battery pack as she began to draw power from him. The pretty boy didn't move: he must be scared to have his eyes closed in the middle of a battle. But power was power.

So what if Rei could fly. Asuka had Mama, who was so much better than some stupid doll.

* * *

Shinji paced angrily. He wished he could go and help, but the instant he left NERV's pyramid they'd start launching missiles at it again. If he was Asuka he might have complained about being demoted to catcher, but he did have to stay here in case Kaworu started trying to reach Adam, too. Shinji hoped not, and not just for Kaworu's sake: fixing the ocean would be a sign of good will that might make the world start listening and stop attacking. Just because they stopped trusting SEELE wouldn't mean they'd start trusting NERV, if they managed to discredit SEELE in the first place. If they kept thinking NERV meant to cause Third Impact, then even if they killed every soldier in Japan more would come.

But it wasn't the vessel of Adam who zipped past him into the Geofront after the last of the MP Evas was defeated.

"Ah, Rei," Gendo said, as though he'd never doubted she would appear. Seeming to be in control was much of the secret to staying in control.

But why was she hovering in front of Lilith instead of coming to him?

When Lilith's body collapsed into LCL, he acted utterly unsurprised. The body of Lilith was not something that he required, not as long as he had Rei.

Who, still ignoring him, left as quickly as she had come.

The real question was what to do with units 01 and 02, when they contained human souls. Still, it would not be easy to cause Third Impact with either of them. It would take elaborate rituals and precise conditions, and without the MP Evas, she was fairly certain that if Adam's body could also be destroyed, Third Impact was beyond SEELE's grasp, at least for the moment. The trouble was that she could not destroy Adam's body as easily as she had Lilith's: Kaworu could because he had Adam's soul, but bringing it to him ran the risk that the call would overwhelm him and he would unite with it instead.

Fortunately, angels weren't the only ones with AT fields, were they.

This time, when Rei appeared in front of Gendo, she grabbed him by the leg so he couldn't reach up against gravity to grab her with that hand and hauled him out of there, dangling upside-down behind her.

* * *

"So, to save the world, I need to step on my father?" Shinji asked Rei. He needed to grind Gendo down into the dirt, destroying him and Adam? To save the world, and to save Kaworu? This was too good to be true, but, "If I do it here and now, the world will see. They want him dead," for trying to cause Third Impact, "but murdering my own father… Who would trust me?" When he needed them to trust what he said about Kaworu? "Can you hand him over to them? That way they can see he has Adam." And this would be closer to settled.

"If Misato can tell me where to go," Rei said thoughtfully, still dangling Gendo upside-down beneath her by his ankle.

* * *

The big window shattered and Rei swooped in.

"It's a pilot!"

"It's an angel!"

She hovered there patiently, waiting for someone to realized that of course bullets were just going to ricochet off an AT field. When an officer finally ordered them to stop, because the Prime Minister was here, she threw Gendo at their feet. "He has what remains of Adam implanted in his hand," she told them. Misato said to say that, "We're handing him over to you as a sign of good faith. Right now, we need the last two Evas to defend ourselves from SEELE, but once they and Adam are destroyed, provided SEELE is stopped from building any more Evas, the risk of Third Impact is over. You'll get the data soon." If Misato and Ritsuko hadn't already managed to get all of Kaji's files out past SEELE, spamming the world's inboxes and activating all the dead drops meant to place them in the hands of independent media and hopefully relatively uncorrupted politicians – SEELE had their hands everywhere.

As Rei flew away, she found the part of herself that was Lilith thinking that her children were mostly rather dim, but they were adorable anyway.

* * *

"Do you like it?" his angel asked him hopefully, looking up at him from the palm of Shinji's hand. Well, his Eva's hand, but he could still feel it like it was his own.

It felt like Kaworu was so small, so delicate, as easy to crush as his hopes or his heart. Kaworu hadn't held anything back from Shinji, trusted him so much, valued his opinion more than anyone's and that meant it would be so easy to hurt him. If Shinji told him that Second Impact really had been Kaworu's fault, that nothing he could do would ever begin to make up for it or that Kaworu should die, of course Kaworu would believe him. When those were the beliefs he had accepted for years, because if his life had no worth then those thoughts couldn't crush it.

Kaworu's life was in Shinji's hands, Kaworu's life was Shinji's gift, and it would be so easy to take it away. He could kill him by accident, with a thoughtless word or deed, as easily as he could by making a fist, by crushing the frail human body that placed itself within the grasp of a war machine so trustingly.

"It's beautiful, Kaworu," Shinji told him, not looking out over the crater lakes but down at the other boy and his sunset eyes. Maybe he regretted a little that the sea wouldn't be the color of those eyes anymore, but they could swim in it now, the two of them, and Kaworu's eyes wouldn't be so shadowed, that smile would be even brighter when he saw that Shinji liked his gift. "I know everyone else will like it too, they liked it before, didn't they? And beaches were for the summer, and it's always summer now." So people would appreciate Kaworu's gift all the time, just like Shinji would always want Kaworu.

In old movies, people took towels and umbrellas to the beach and made out under them. They should do that, Shinji thought. What else did people do on beaches? Take long walks, but they already did that. If they brought a towel, then they didn't have to spend all that time walking, either. If they were at the beach a lot of the time, then Kaworu would just wear swim trunks too, and, um. Except that meant Shinji couldn't really wear a shirt either, and he didn't look as good as Kaworu. He didn't want Kaworu to look at other people on the beach, so Shinji might have to start exercising a little. It would be nice to be as handsome as Mr. Kaji.

And not just in Kaworu's eyes.

* * *

"What do you mean, the pretty boy has been sleeping with stupid Shinji!" Asuka demanded, standing on top of NERV to defend it as technicians reattached the power cable now that she'd finished off the MP Evas and Mama had spat the pretty boy out. She'd let the pretty boy into her Eva, let him touch her Mama (even if the tentacles had been on the other being). The part of her mind that was still running on childish logic after rebooting (most of it) was furious: had they tricked her into giving her Mama _Shinji cooties? _

The two of them were kissing, right down on the ground in front of her Eva, and she had half a mind to give them a good kick. The pretty boy had an AT field, so they'd survive it, and hopefully if she punted them a good kilometer away they'd get the hint and, "Mein gott, in public? Get a room! But not the one near mine!"

* * *

It was Shinji's Eva they sent to destroy Adam, with Rei there to make sure the government didn't try to keep Shinji after the Eva self-destructed: custody of the Third Child wasn't part of the terms of the ceasefire, and she and Misato were not happy that they'd given their soldiers order to kill the pilots. The _children _who saved the world. Kaworu wanted to go, but it wasn't safe when Adam was there so Rei had to keep Shinji safe on his behalf as well.

The sea was blue again, and the lotus flowers that covered the crater lakes were real.

Now, as soon as they could pry Asuka out of her Mama, or find some way to pry Kyoko's soul out of there, the risk of Third Impact would be over. It was already mostly over, since Unit 02 didn't have an S2 engine. The 'war' on NERV still wouldn't be fully over (this was a ceasefire) until the UN listened to reason about Rei and Kaworu, but Misato wasn't holding her breath. Fortunately, most of Tokyo-3's people were already evacuated and the fortress was well-stocked for a siege. Or, as the bridge staff were calling it, an extended vacation.

Rei and Kaworu were assigned to switch off shifts guarding NERV against missiles, although Kaworu's shifts looked like they were going to also involve Shinji and first a blanket, but then Ikari's son started demonstrating some of those planning skills and dragged up a futon. Hopefully the eyes in the sky seeing that the angel and the pilot didn't have anything more sinister in mind than acting like the teenagers they were would help, Misato said, sitting in front of the camera monitors with Ritsuko and several coolers of beer.

The two of them looked up from each other when Rei swooped down. Kaworu looked much better already, and it had only been a few hours since Shinji destroyed Adam and stopped the call. "Is it your shift yet?" Shinji asked, pretty sure it wasn't unless they'd changed the schedule.

Rei shook her head. "May I sleep here, so that I am immediately available?"

"Of course, Rei," Kaworu assured her, moving over to make room on the futon. Shinji looked for a moment like he was regretting Kaworu's generosity and innocent lack of understanding of the entire concept of privacy, but then Shinji was the one lying on top of and grinding against his boyfriend in front of more cameras than just NERV's, so he really wasn't in a position to talk.

She leaned towards Shinji. "The second lo-I love you," she said, surprising him enough that he blinked at her. "Tabris and I had a long time to talk, about honesty, feelings and choices."

Shinji blushed: Kaworu was Kaworu, but someone else seeking him out for affection, and not the way Asuka had, treating Shinji's feelings like something she could toy with for fun, or Misato's lack of conviction? "But I'm already with someone." Someone he barely deserved as it was.

Kaworu smiled at him: why would that possibly be a problem? Why wouldn't he want the one he loved to have more loved ones, more people who made him happy? He reached up to stroke Shinji's hair. "You like her, and you mourn the connection the two of you had." Even if it was just the beginnings of a connection. "You deserve to be loved," he reminded Shinji.

"The two of us are alike," Rei said, shifting closer to them. "It was he who told me that, and I agree." It wasn't just that they were angels, although as artificial angels containing the souls of the seeds they were very alike, almost the twins they looked. "I have choices, and I like you." Far more than his father.

Shinji blushed to hear that from her, and Kaworu reached up, offering her his hand, offering for her to join them, certain that Shinji wouldn't push her away.

"Um." Maya blushed as she watched Kaworu brush a kiss against Rei's cheek in greeting, reassurance, or just affection before lying down again to nuzzle at Shinji's as Rei ran tentative hands down Shinji's chest. Kaworu had only taken off his shirt so far, and Shinji only put on a pair of pants after he got out of the plugsuit. Rei was fully clothed (so far), but that just made it sexier somehow, that they wanted this, wanted each other enough to take their time, to cuddle and caress. It would be nice to see piece after piece gradually come off, maybe Rei's shirt, with hands reaching up under what would probably be a practical sports bra, not anything lacy, sadly.

"I can pull up Unit 01 stomping on the Commander's arm, if you want," Ritsuko offered. "We've got multiple screens." Multiple camera angles. Ritsuko would like to see that again herself. Very cathartic, after watching sex between people who actually cared about each other. If Shinji wanted to keep Kaworu to himself, at least it was because he cared. Because he didn't want to lose him or have to kill him, and that was far, far nobler than the commander.

Glancing at Ritsuko out of the corner of her eye, wishing Ritsuko had someone who treated her like that, like she was so very precious (wishing she had someone to show her how to show Ritsuko that), Maya shook her head.

Unbeknownst to Misato, while the tapes of Shinji and Kaworu were going into Ritsuko's private files, now that Rei had joined them this was going all over the internet. Just because it wasn't Rei's fault the Commander never cared for Ritsuko didn't mean she wasn't a bitch who didn't deserve what she kept getting just for being made.

Kaworu didn't have embarrassment in his personal dictionary and Shinji was an exhibitionist anyway (too much Gendo had convinced Ritsuko that all men were whores), so it wasn't as though there would be any collateral damage.

And thus it was that Shinji Ikari, already an international symbol of manhood because he piloted a giant robot, for crying out loud, became even more of a sex symbol and went down in the history books not just for his heroism but for saving the world by being an angel magnet.

It might have been 'chick magnet,' or 'even aliens want him,' but all sources that implied that Misato was attracted to an underage boy in her care or Asuka was attracted to that idiot Shinji were mysteriously blown up or crushed under a giant red boot.

* * *

_I said it was going to end up crack, didn't I?_

_Exactly who is getting the set of opposite-sex twins is a good question. The resemblance between Rei and Kaworu is obvious, but Shinji was designed to have a face very similar to Rei's both to make him feminine and to hint at the family relationship between him and Yui. Put on a wig and contact lenses, or if it's one of _those _AUs give him Duo's hairstyle, then give him some blue hair dye… He makes for a pretty convincing trap in that one game, so it would be an interesting plot twist for someone to think they've got Rei and then it turns out to be a very displeased and/or embarrassed decoy!Shinji, who is not quite so useful for causing Third Impact without his Eva. If it's a closer to canon/more passive Shinji, perhaps Asuka did an Aeris and made him do it. If it's one of those AUs by male authors where everyone female is bi, perhaps Asuka's the one with a twin fantasy. Shinji being bi is really not up for debate in the Director's Cut, which makes it more obvious what Shinji is checking out during a certain conversation. Unless he's just bi for Kaworu._

_Whether or not Kaworu is Shinji-sexual only varies by 'verse, but a pretty good case for Rei liking him in _Campus Apocalypse_ could be made, and he knows she loves Shinji and doesn't have an issue with it. He's also clearly protective of her, given his reaction to what Leliel says (sad!Rei sheltering behind him is cute) & finding out that Gendo's cloning a replacement (when apparently Gendo's no longer allowed to do that and who else there has the power to tell him no?) so the question becomes whether or not he could possibly be interested at all or he just sees himself as her mentor/protector. Interesting that Rei recruits him to try to make a bento for Shinji instead of someone who actually knows how to cook… _

_Something very amusing about that one game is that apparently Kaworu knows how to use makeup. Now, as a practical matter, that would actually be a very, very good skill for him to have. He and Rei were supposed to be on the far side of the uncanny valley, and since he was supposed to infiltrate NERV it would be essential for him to be able to make himself look less obviously like an angel. Without at least some contacts, hair dye & something to add color to his skin that isn't grey, he shouldn't be fooling anyone who knows the truth about Rei. Of course, in canon, he's sent by SEELE & Ritsuko immediately figures out what he is at least in the Director's Cut (Gendo likely knows too), so there really isn't any need to fool anyone at NERV who knows Rei: they're either powerless or want him dead too. Still, any verse where he actually wants to hide that he's an angel instead of not expecting to live very long anyway (or pretty sure that since SEELE knows, Gendo knows), should probably not have him walking around with red eyes. Rain or someone suspicious removing powder to reveal pale grey skin would be a good dramatic reveal in a more realistic 'verse where normally, humans don't have blue hair._

And the above bunny turned into a fic.


End file.
